by Brett Waring
“How the hell ...?” asked Cassidy, bewildered.
Nash merely smiled, then started to build a cigarette.
“If you’ll dig up some paper and a pencil, I’ll write it all out for Jim Hume so you don’t have any trouble. Just make sure he keeps the posse well away from here.”
That was all Nash would say, despite their hammering him with questions while he wrote out his report for Jim Hume. When he had finished, he rolled up in his blankets, saying that he aimed to get an early start in the morning.
He didn’t say where he aimed to go.
The rented house was near the northern outskirts of Sesame Ridge, a weathered clapboard place with only two glass windows in the whole building. The others were shuttered, and they were propped open on wooden braces now, as Clay Nash walked up the path in the heat of mid-afternoon.
It was Sunday and he was taking a chance that the man he wanted to see would be at home. He rapped on the door and a frail-looking child about seven or eight opened it. Nash smiled as he leaned down, doffing his hat to her.
“Afternoon, young lady. Your pa at home?”
“I’ll see, sir,” the little girl piped. “Who shall I say is calling?”
“Clay Nash.”
Less than a minute later, a worried-looking Cutler came bustling down the short hallway, the child behind him standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen, pointing.
“This is most unexpected, Mr. Nash,” the clerk said, a shade nervously. He was wearing a damp flour sack apron on which he was wiping his hands. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing thin white arms. “Please, come in, sir.”
Nash stepped inside and Cutler closed the door after him.
“You must forgive me, Mr. Nash. As I believe I told you once before, I have an ailing wife and ... well, I believe it is my duty to help all I can, so this afternoon, as on most Sunday afternoons, I am doing the household washing. Please—in here.”
The clerk led Nash into a dingy parlor that smelled musty. The drapes were old and faded, one pair so worn they were practically transparent. He refused Cutler’s offer to sit down and the clerk frowned at him, puzzled.
“I won’t stay. ’Fact is, I’d rather not be seen here at your house. Not for my own sake, but for yours.” Nash paused, looking steadily at the uncomfortable man. “It’s even possible you have some inkling as to why I’m here, I think.”
Cutler sighed, nodding slowly. “Yes, of course I have, Mr. Nash. It’s to do with the cash shipment, that fifty thousand dollars, unless I miss my guess.”
“You don’t miss your guess, Mr. Cutler.”
“I thought so. As soon as Mandy told me your name, I knew.” He gave Nash a half-smile. “Did you know that Mr. Jarvess has left the Company, handed in his notice soon after his—er—altercation with you.”
Nash raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know. But I guess it was a convenient enough time for him to resign.”
“Yes, sir, I fear it was.” Cutler looked levelly at Nash. “Will I be in much trouble, Mr. Nash?”
“You’re not in any trouble,” Nash told him quietly. “Rest easy on that score. I know anything you did you were forced into.”
Cutler looked as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He groped for the arm of a chair.
“If you don’t, mind, Mr. Nash, I rather think I’d like to sit down.”
“Go ahead. Then tell me about it. But, before you do, can you still get in touch with Jarvess?”
Cutler seemed surprised at the question, but nodded slowly.
“Yes, sir, he’s still in town, intending, I believe, to pick up the Phoenix stage tomorrow morning.”
Nash smiled in satisfaction and sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair.
“Then I came just in time, it seems.”
How long was it going to take? Nash asked himself as he wiped sweat from his gaunt face, sitting in the shade cast by the big boulder near the base of Hangman’s Spur.
He had waited out here all yesterday and now most of today. Still there was no sign of Ralls coming to collect his cache of stolen money. For the first time, Nash began to wonder if his plan was going to work. He knew his theory was correct; Cutler, the brow-beaten clerk, had confirmed that part, all right.
But, theory was one thing. Proof, it was another. Which, after all, was why he was here right now.
He had to take Ralls red-handed picking up the stolen money. For more reasons than one, too. It seemed that Ralls was the only one who knew where the money was hidden ...
Nash was running low on grub. It was his own fault. He should have replenished his supplies when in Sesame Ridge, but hadn’t wanted to be seen around town and had cleared it as soon as he finished speaking with Cutler. Also, he hadn’t anticipated such a long wait. He thought he might have goosed Ralls out of hiding right away.
For a moment he wrestled with a worrying thought; suppose Ralls had come out and collected that money while he had been up in Sesame Ridge? The man would have had time enough to do it ...
He shook the thought from him. It wasn’t likely. Sure, he had to admit there was a possibility it could have happened, but it still wasn’t very likely. They had played it smart all down the line, so there was no reason to think they would panic at this stage.
Nash only hoped his subterfuge would be enough to set things in motion ...
The afternoon went and faded into sundown and then into another night, and he made yet another cold camp. He didn’t aim to give away his position at this stage.
By midnight, he was asleep, leaning against the boulder, his blankets draped round his shoulders and bent knees. His six-gun was resting in his lap. His horse grazed and dozed alternately, trailing its reins. Night sounds echoed around the Spur.
Nash’s head fell forward and he jarred his forehead against his knees. This half-woke him. It was the sound of the horse coming through the pass below and to his left that woke him up all the way.
For a moment, he didn’t move. He sat where he was, staring down at the moonlight-washed ground between his feet: the moon had risen since he dozed off. His senses sharpened and he heard the slight clunk of a horse’s hoofs again. His hand grasped the butt of the Colt in his lap and his other arm began to lift the blanket away from his body.
He crawled forward to the edge and looked down. At first he didn’t see anything moving in the pass, and then there was a kind of rippling in the shadows, perhaps a hundred feet to his left. He watched there, eyes straining to pick out the darker shape moving against those shadows. Yes, it was a horseman, riding very slowly, staying in close to the wall of the pass, where the shadows were.
Nash smiled faintly in satisfaction. At last, he was getting results.
The rider had stopped now. Probably he was taking his bearings, making sure it was safe to venture out through this end of the pass, which led to the rock-studded area where the old sourdough prospector had seen Ralls take the satchels of money.
The Wells Fargo man had his thumb hooked in the curl of the hammer spur. He eased it back to half-cock, not moving another muscle now, waiting patiently ...
Minutes passed. Then there was movement below and the rider walked his mount out into the full moonlight for the first time.
Nash sucked down a sharp breath.
It wasn’t Ralls.
It was Lang Jarvess.
In his shock Nash moved more than he meant to. His hand, on the very edge, slipped and set a small landslide in motion.
Instantly, Jarvess jumped his mount around and his Colt came up in his right hand, spitting flame and smoke. The bullet, a lucky shot, or by design, Nash wasn’t sure, hit the rim right in front of his face and stone chips stung his face, momentarily blinding him.
He clawed at his eyes, rolling instinctively to get away from the second shot he knew must come, but rolled the wrong way and went over the edge. His body skidded and slewed and somersaulted down the steep slope and he felt the rocks banging against his ribs and legs and body. Dus
t rose in a choking cloud. He had only one thought uppermost in his mind: to hold onto his six-gun at all costs.
Nash’s body skidded to the bottom of the slope and he was dazed, semi-conscious as the dust cleared and he pushed to hands and knees. He swore. Despite his efforts, he had dropped his Colt. He saw the moonlight glinting off the metal of the weapon where it rested against a rock eight feet away.
He jumped as a bullet smashed into the ground between his spread hands. His head jerked up and he looked at Lang Jarvess, sitting his horse only a couple of yards away, covering him with a cocked and smoking Colt.
“Goddamn you, Clay! I figured you’d be long gone!”
Nash gave him a crooked smile, careful not to move from his kneeling position. “Figured that’s what you’d figure. But I was expectin’ Ralls.”
Jarvess’ teeth flashed as he grinned. “He won’t be comin’.”
“No, ’course not. I see that now. Should’ve seen it before. He ain’t been seen since he stashed the money because he’s dead. You killed him, I guess, for a bigger share. Or so you didn’t have to share at all.”
Jarvess’ face was highlighted by the moon. Nash saw his mouth curl.
“Yeah. He’s dead. But I didn’t kill him.” He laughed briefly as he saw the disbelief on Nash’s face. “Gospel, Clay. He killed himself. How? Outsmarted himself, that’s how. When he hid that money, he stashed it in a nest of rattlers. He hid out in the gulches and canyons of the Spur, waiting for you and the posse and the salvage crews to clear off. He was s’posed to let me know then, when it was all clear. But he figured to collect the money himself. Was gonna bring it in to me, he said.” He shrugged. “Might’ve been true. Don’t matter now. He got bit by one of the snakes and had to leave the cash stashed. Panicked, ran to me. By that time the poison’d gone right through him. He died just after he told me the exact position of the cash. I dropped his body down one of the wild canyons back in the hills. Don’t much matter whether he’s found or not now.” He paused briefly, sobering. “I’ll likely do the same with your body, afterwards.”
“You’re sick, Lang, you know that?” Nash said suddenly, and tensed, as the Colt came down and drew bead on him. He held his breath, then let it out slowly between clenched teeth when the shot did not come.
“Sick of bein’ treated like a fool,” Jarvess said quietly, bitterly. “Not good enough for executive material, not good enough as a husband ... Yeah, Clay, I’m sick of all them things and more!”
“I know, Lang,” Nash said, not unsympathetically. “I finally figured it out, from the way you act so persecuted, how you bully the hell out of your staff, especially Cutler ...”
“Ah, yes, poor old Cutler!” sneered Jarvess. “I see now. You used him to get me to ride into this trap, didn’t you? He, as chief clerk, was left in charge of the depot after I quit. So I didn’t doubt him when he came to me and said, out of past loyalty, he felt I should know he had received a message from you saying that I had come under strong suspicion as being implicated in the robbery. He felt he ‘owed’ it to me to warn me, so that I could get away.” He laughed bitterly. “You damn well knew I’d run for the money, didn’t you, Clay?”
“Well, I was expecting Ralls. Figured you’d get him to collect it. That was before I knew he was dead, of course ... You’ve been on a good thing for a while, haven’t you, Lang? Working in with Moss Dooley, arranging to tell him when a stage worth robbing was due to move out of your depot.”
Jarvess scowled. “The Company treated me like dirt. I figured it was only right I should make ’em pay! Yeah, I worked in with Dooley’s bunch. Tipped him off.”
“But this time you only had Cutler tip him off about Case Ritchie carrying the money belt, didn’t you?” Nash asked. “You didn’t tell him about the fifty thousand in the secret compartment. That was for you. But you needed someone riding that stage who could get their hands on it and hide it after Dooley had left. Ralls. Guess he was an old pard of yours. It hardly matters now. The point was, he was to jump from the stage before it crashed, and you knew it would, for the driver and guard were to be killed. Driverless, it had to crash sooner or later. Ralls was to lie low and, after Dooley vamoosed, he was to grab the money, stash it, and then disappear until things cooled down.”
“Damn you, Clay! You always were smarter than me! Always toppin’ me in everythin’! But not this time, you son of a bitch!”
He triggered, but Nash was already moving, hurling himself bodily through the air, right hand clawed and reaching desperately for his six-gun lying in the dust.
Jarvess fired again and jammed his heels into his horse’s flanks, leaping it forward, trying to ram it into Nash.
The Wells Fargo man got his hands around the butt of the Colt, rolled onto his back and lifted one arm up instinctively as the horse leapt over him. He spun out from under the hoofs, rose to one knee and, as Jarvess hipped in leather, chopped at the hammer spur with the edge of his left hand.
The gun bucked and roared as he fanned off three swift shots, the gun barrel riding upwards with the jolting and recoil. Hit twice, Jarvess pitched from his mount, losing the grip of his gun. The weapon skittered towards Nash, who gathered it up and rammed it into his waistband as he lurched to his feet. Grim-faced, he trudged to where Jarvess lay bleeding from his wounds. Jarvess’ left arm was creased from Nash’s first bullet. The second had missed. The third was in his chest.
“Oh, hell—Clay ...!”
“Stay quiet.” Nash inspected the chest-wound, winced, then declared, “I’ll be taking you back to town. Getting my slug out of you is a chore for a doctor. But, first, the satchels?”
“No—use to me—now ...” panted Jarvess. “I sure—loused up—everything—didn’t I ...?”
“Tell me where, Lang.”
“Back of a rock ...”
“Lang, they’re all alike! One rock looks the same as another!”
“Ralls said—a scarred rock. Half-moon—scar. Said I—couldn’t miss it.” As Nash made to move off, Jarvess clutched at him weakly. “Clay! Let me—finish it! I’m beggin’ you! My gun—let me have it ...!”
“You know I’d never do that,” muttered Nash. I’ll be taking you back. There’s a good doctor in town, and he’ll ...”
“Yeah—sure …” groaned Jarvess. “He’ll get me—healthy—healthy enough—for my day in court.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nash. “But that’s the way it has to be.”
He rose and hurried to the rocks. Aided by moonlight and scratching one match after another, he began his search. How long would this take? How much time did Jarvess have? He was running out of patience when he scratched his seventh match.
And there it was. A rock showing a scar in the shape of a half-moon. By some stroke of good fortune all the rattlers had gone. One by one, he lifted the satchels from their hiding place.
“All here, Lang,” he called. “We can be on our way now.”
The bark of the gunshot caused him to jerk convulsively. He whirled, emptying his holster. Then, shoulders sagging, he moved across to the sprawled body. Lang Jarvess had ended it, had taken his own life. His plea for his Colt had fooled Nash, who hadn’t counted on a pocket-pistol, hadn’t thought to check him for a concealed weapon. The Smith & Wesson with the cut-down barrel was still held to Jarvess’ bloody and blackened right temple.
“All right, Lang, all right,” he said softly. “You had to do it your way.”
Late afternoon of the following day, Clay Nash sat slumped on a sidewalk bench, one ear cocked to Jim Hume’s muttered discourse. Hume paced back and forth in front of him, doing his talking around a tight-gripped cigar.
“It’s all squared away, Clay. The recovered fifty thousand is in safe hands. And those cattlemen, Tallon, Breck and Parsons, are happy as a tinhorn sitting behind a straight flush. Successful completion of your assignment, Clay. You pulled Wells Fargo out of one helluva fix this time. So don’t be surprised if there’s a fat bonus in your next pay package.”
“Cassidy and his wife?” frowned Nash.
“I’ll make it up to ’em,” Hume promised. “They’ll be fine from here on. Count on that.” He moved close to the bench and dropped a hand to Nash’s shoulder. “This was a rough one for you. Jarvess turned bad. And he was an old buddy of yours. I guess it’s not much consolation, huh? In the end, it wasn’t your bullet killed him.”
“You’re right,” Nash said tight-lipped. “Not much consolation.”
“Flop for a week, get drunk, get it all out of your system,” advised Hume. “You’ve sure earned a break.” As he turned away, he added off-handedly: “You’ll be hearing from me—when needs be.”
“Sure, Jim,” nodded Nash. “’Be seein’ you.”
Left alone, he slumped a little lower, crossed his legs and dug out his makings. As he rolled a cigarette, he brooded. Assignment successfully completed. He had done well, living up to his reputation as a top trouble-shooter for the Company. Hard work and dirty, but a job that had to be done. So now he could relax.
Until the next assignment ...
About the Author
Keith Hetherington
aka Kirk Hamilton, Brett Waring and Hank J. Kirby
Australian writer Keith has worked as television scriptwriter on such Australian TV shows as Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Solo One, The Box, The Spoiler and Chopper Squad.
“I always liked writing little vignettes, trying to describe the action sequences I saw in a film or the Saturday Afternoon Serial at local cinemas,” remembers Keith Hetherington, better-known to Piccadilly Publishing readers as Hank J. Kirby, author of the Bronco Madigan series.
Keith went on to pen hundreds of westerns (the figure varies between 600 and 1000) under the names Kirk Hamilton (including the legendary Bannerman the Enforcer series) and Clay Nash as Brett Waring. Keith also worked as a journalist for the Queensland Health Education Council, writing weekly articles for newspapers on health subjects and radio plays dramatizing same.